2 ENGLISH ESTATE FORESTRY 



the British Isles were united to the Continent, or when the 

 lion, tiger, elephant, and hyaena lived in its jungles, it is 

 hardly worth while speculating upon ; but everything points 

 to the fact that we still possess all those types of forest trees 

 which have existed within these islands during the last hun- 

 dred thousand years. What changes have taken place in 

 comparatively recent times have been in the direction of 

 augmenting the number of species which can thrive in the 

 British climate by artificial assistance or protection ; and if 

 our woodlands were once again left to their own resources, 

 there is every probability that a large number of introductions 

 would hold their own with the original occupant. 



Trees and shrubs generally considered to be indigenous 

 to England are the following : Oak, ash, beech, wych elm, 

 Scots pine, yew, alder, willow, poplar, maple, hornbeam, 

 whitebeam, mountain ash, birch, bird cherry, gean, dog- 

 wood, privet, holly, hazel, black and white thorn, service 

 tree, elder, juniper, gorse, broom, buckthorn, spindle tree, 

 etc. These species may be found in most of the remains of 

 our natural forests to-day, and are more or less widely 

 distributed in hedges and copses. 



The distribution of these species in the shape of forest was 

 practically universal, so far as the soil and situation would 

 allow. If it were possible to go far enough back, we should 

 probably find that Caesar's assertion two thousand years ago 

 that Britain was " one horrid forest " was practically true at 

 one time, although it is doubtful if that was the case in his 

 day. In The Making of England Mr. J. E. Green gives us 

 the following picture of the natural woodlands previous to or 

 in the time of the Eomans. He states that " neither moor nor 

 fen covered so vast a tract of Britain as its woods. The 

 wedge of forest and scrub which filled the hollow between the 

 North and South Downs, stretched in an unbroken mass for 

 120 miles from Hampshire to the Valley of the Medway; 

 but huge as it was, this Andreds Weald was hardly greater 

 than other of the woodlands which covered Great Britain. A 

 line of thickets along the shore of the Southampton Water 

 linked it with as large a forest tract to the west, a fragment 

 of which survives in our New Forest, but which then bent 

 away through the present Dorsetshire, and spread northward 



